Ricki Stern

The San Francisco International LGBT Festival enters its first weekend with a full slate of screenings scheduled at the Castro, Roxie and Victoria theaters. Elsewhere, two of the year's strongest offerings to date – Winter's Bone and The Oath – arrive at the city's Landmark cinemas. As always, here's a list of some of the finest films currently playing at an indie theater near you.1. Winter's BoneWhere:Embarcadero Center Cinema, 1 Embarcadero Ctr., 415-352-0835When: All Week

Joan Rivers, at 77, remains one of the hardest-working comedians in the business. She performs more than 200 stand-up gigs each year. Last year, she starred in the second season of NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice – and to no one’s surprise was the winner. She sells jewelry on cable TV. And she is front and center in Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s fascinating new documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work.

No need to pity the fool. If spending your weekend with B.A. Baracus and the rest of the reconstituted A-Team doesn't strike your fancy, you still have time to catch Michael Douglas' mesmerizing turn in Solitary Man, or Noomi Rapace's astonishing coming-out party in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Here, as always, are some of the finest films currently playing at an indie theater near you.

If you’re expecting Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work to showcase her famously blue stand-up routines – a testament, perhaps, to the undiminished ferocity she still brings to the stage at 77 – you’ve got another think coming.

That’s not to say Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s illuminating documentary, which closed the San Francisco Film Festival in May, isn’t funny. But the story it tells, of a comedy workaholic struggling to stay at the top of her profession, is also undeniably bittersweet.

If you’re expecting Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work to showcase her famously blue stand-up routines – a testament, perhaps, to the undiminished ferocity she still brings to the stage at 76 – you’ve got another think coming.